


no more dreaming like a girl so in love with the wrong world

by EllieMurasaki



Category: Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis, Supernatural
Genre: Community: womenverse, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-17
Updated: 2012-10-17
Packaged: 2017-11-16 12:24:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/539392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EllieMurasaki/pseuds/EllieMurasaki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How Castiel means to win the war, or, how Queen Susan's great-granddaughter learns she's royalty.</p>
            </blockquote>





	no more dreaming like a girl so in love with the wrong world

"Sorry!" Addie says with glee, bumping Nana's green pawn from the first yellow slide back to Start.

Nana makes a face. "I was so close." She draws and shows her card: a two. "Hurrah!" she says, moving the pawn right back out of Start. Her second card is a four.

Addie groans as Nana moves the pawn four spaces backwards. She counts the spaces from her blue pawn to Nana's. "Eleven," she says, and crosses her fingers. "Eleven eleven eleven eleven—" The card she draws is not an eleven. The five puts her on the start of the second yellow slide, which means the end of the second yellow slide, but Nana has no pawns there to bump and—

There's someone else in the room.

"Mister?" Addie asks. He's dressed like a visitor, not a nurse, which means he must be looking for someone. He can't be looking for Nana; no one ever comes to see Nana except the nurses and Addie and Mum. "Are you lost?"

"Susan Goodridge," the man says. That's Nana's name. So he's not lost. Who is he, then?

Nana turns around. "You have the advantage of me," she says.

"I am Castiel," the man says. "You have seen God. I need to find him."

"Most people would start in a church," says Nana.

"He is not there," Castiel says.

"Temple?" Nana asks. "Mosque? Synagogue?"

"I have visited many places of worship," Castiel says. "I believe he cannot be found at any of them."

Nana reaches for her walker and stands up straight. "You are interrupting my time with my great-granddaughter," Nana says. "You will tell us what you want or you will leave."

"Miss Pevensie," says Castiel, "I think you know."

"I have not been Miss Pevensie in a very long time," Nana says.

"It is Miss Pevensie I need, not Mrs. Goodridge," Castiel says. "Miss Pevensie, I am told, has spoken with the Lion of Judah face to face."

Nana doesn't say anything.

"The Lion of Judah is Jesus, isn't he?" Addie asks. "Doesn't everybody talk to Jesus, Nana? Everybody Christian, anyway," she adds. Jamila is Muslim, and Nilima is Hindu, and Lydia isn't anything, and it isn't nice to talk about everybody like everybody is the same because that's like saying the people who aren't the same aren't really people, or aren't really there. Nana says. Nana isn't saying anything right now, though. "Nana?"

Nana sighs. She isn't standing as straight anymore. "Many Christians do, Addie," she says. "I think Castiel is here because he read Mister Lewis's books and he thinks the stories are real."

"The stories are true," Castiel says, like Jamila does when she's reminding Lydia of something obvious.

"Of course Narnia is all true," Nana says. "The stories resonate with us, they speak to us, and all stories that touch people like that are true. But true is not the same as real. Jack Lewis was a dear friend when I desperately needed one, and with my permission he wrote books around the games my siblings and I played when we were very young. That is real. That is all that is real. I am astonished that you found me, Castiel, but everything I could tell you is something you can find in Jack's books or in the Bible or the Book of Common Prayer."

Addie thinks that through and gasps. "Nana! You're Queen Susan! Why didn't you tell me?"

"Have you read _The Last Battle_?" Nana asks.

"Of _course_ ," Addie says, insulted. "I didn't like it. At the end everyone was mean to Susan and she was all by herself in England, and she didn't do anything wrong, she just liked looking pretty and she didn't—" Addie stops. She didn't die. Like her sister and brothers did. Like her parents.

"Sorry," Addie says, very quiet.

"It was a long time ago," Nana says. "Thinking of them is not so painful now." She straightens, looking up a little to look Castiel in the eye. "Why are you here?"

"When Queen Susan called for the Lion to aid her in the rebellion on Avra, he came," says Castiel.

Nana sits down hard.

"I need to find him," Castiel says again.

"Jack didn't write that," Nana says blankly. "I didn't tell him, so he never wrote it. How do you know it if he never wrote it?"

"That is immaterial," Castiel says. "There is an evil in this world the White Witch's equal or greater. The only one who can stop him without a battle that will destroy much of the world is someone who has come at your call. Queen Susan, I beg you."

"I have been calling since the day my family died," says Nana. "He is not a tame lion." She laughs; it sounds like it hurts. "He left Narnia to the Witch for decades. We found—" She swallows. "We found the bodies, of his first young royalty. Not statues. Corpses. Three sets of four, and one or two were younger than Addie. He didn't help them like he helped us. And my people suffered. After the snows melted, the floods came, and he stayed away. And my people suffered. I understand that after he stole us back to England, Narnia tore itself apart in a civil war, some backing my brother's daughter Veronica and some my daughter Julia and some my sister's son Nicholas, and none willing to see all three rule together as my siblings and I did. _And my people suffered._ "

Queen Susan takes a breath. "He will help you when and if it suits him, Castiel. In the meantime, they say God helps those who help themselves."

Castiel doesn't say anything for a long time. Neither does Queen Susan. Addie can't think of anything to say.

"Thank you," Castiel says finally, "for your assistance." With a sound like the flapping of great wings, he's gone.

Nana slumps against the chair back. "Whatever war he's fighting," she says, "I hope it ends swiftly and with little bloodshed."

"Nana?" Addie asks. There's too much in her head. Wars and princesses and—

"Come here, my dove," Nana says. Addie scrambles around the table, and Nana hugs her like she means to never let go.


End file.
